The Victorian Law Reform Commissions inquiry into litigation funding and group proceedings provides an important and timely opportunity to reflect on the current operation of our class action regime The regime recognises and was designed to balance competing interests We believe more can be done to ...

The Federal Court decided that a husband and wife who worked from home and sometimes outsourced their work were employees instead of independent contractors, making the employer guilty of sham contracting, underpayments and other breaches. ...

The Supreme Court of Western Australia has rejected a wide-ranging attack by a contracting party preferring litigation to arbitration on the operation of an arbitration clause Partner Andrew Maher reports ...

A recent decision of the High Court could intensify uncertainty about the legitimacy of resolving civil penalty proceedings by the regulator and the defendant approaching the court with an agreed penalty supported by an agreed statement of facts Partner Matthew McLennan and Lawyer Megan Sandler ...

A recent Federal Court decision highlights the importance of managing the provision of information and documentation to third parties with caution in order to preserve legal professional privilege Partner Richard Harris and Senior Associate Elnaz Nikibin report on the case ...

We look at the circumstances where a court may not grant an injunction to restrain an employee from working with a competitor the Fair Work Commissions position on legal representation a case that helps clarify when restructuring roles will create genuine redundancy whether a gift to employees who ...

The FCAFC has upheld an earlier decision rejecting an application to set aside or not enforce an international arbitral award. ...

Parties involved in large-scale commercial transactions with non-lawyer third-party advisers need to be aware that communications with these advisers will rarely be protected by legal professional privilege following a recent Federal Court decision ...

A representative proceeding can only be commenced where seven or more group members have claims against the same person In proceedings with multiple respondents there has been conflicting authority as to whether each group member is required to have a claim against each respondent Last week in Cash ...

In a unanimous decision the Full Federal Court has confirmed that genetic materials in their isolated form remain patentable in Australia The decision related to an appeal from an earlier Federal Court decision in which it was found isolated nucleic acids to be a manner of manufacture as required by ...